The Preaching of the Word
We believe (chorus)
Call to worship:
Neh 8.1-3, 5-6, 8
pastor Brett
song:
How firm a foundation
Historical reading:
2nd Helvetic Confession ch 1 art 3 "the preaching of the word of god is the word of god"
pasot Andrew loginow
song:
Lord, I need you
Confession & Pardon:
pastor michael champoux
song:
Doxology
song:
Speak o lord
Sermon:
"The Preaching of the Word"
2 Tim 3.16-4.2
dr. Al loginow
I’m about to break a rule that was given is every preaching class I ever had. My homiletics professors told me, “Never use yourself as a positive example in a sermon. Never make yourself the hero of a story.” I certainly don’t intend to make myself a hero, but I do want to introduce the topic of preaching, kind of like Paul in 2 Corinthians 11, giving my resume. I took multiple preaching classes in my undergrad and masters. My doctorate is in expository preaching and I wrote my dissertation on Christ-centered preaching. I have read, thought about, and listened to a lot of preaching.
Now I haven’t been preaching for 30 + years like Pastor Kevin, but I have been preaching vocationally for 13 + years, which, as a 35 year old, is over 1/3 of my life. I don’t recite this resume to sound impressive, but to hopefully convey to you that I do not take this topic lightly. My academic and vocational life has been given to preaching. As a pastor, preaching is my deepest passion.
This morning we begin a 7-week summer series on the church. Before our bivocational and lay Elders preach in August, we’re going to spend June and July thinking about the characteristics that are essential for Christ Community Church. This series will not be exhaustive. We will not cover every issue of doctrine, theology, or ethics that are essential for our church, but we will cover seven elements that characterize faithful churches.
And we begin the series this morning with why the preaching of the Word of God is essential. Why is Scripture essential? Why is it important that the Bible be at the center of our lives? Why is it imperative that we come to church every week and listen to sermons from the Bible?
The Word is Essential because God has Spoken
The first reason why the preaching of the Word is essential is because the one true and living God is a God who speaks. Scripture tells us in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1.1). Verse 3 goes on to say, and God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Each subsequent day of creation is inaugurated with the voice of God. Genesis 1 reveals to us that God spoke all of creation into existence.
Not only did God create via his Word but God has also spoken his Law to us. In Genesis 1-2 God commanded Adam to be fruitful and multiply (Gen 1.28) and he also commanded him to abstain from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2.17). God spoke to Noah when he instructed him to build the Ark (Gen 6.13-7.4). When God called Abraham it was through the promise of His words (Gen 12.1-3). And when YHWH redeemed Israel from slavery in Egypt he brought them to Mount Sinai and he wrote the 10 Commandments on the two tablets himself (Exod 31.18).
These 10 Commandments, written on tablets of stone by the finger of God himself, were the first ever written Scripture. And the Bible began to take shape from there. Moses wrote the Torah, Genesis-Deuteronomy. And as redemptive history progressed YHWH spoke through the prophets and the Old and New Testaments were written. 2nd Timothy 3.16 tells us that all Scripture is breathed out by God.
The phrase, breathed out by God is the Greek word θεόπνευστος. It’s a compound adjective made up of the word θεός, which means God and the word πνεῦμα, which means Spirit. So θεόπνευστος, breathed out by God, literally means, “God Spirited.” It conveys the idea that the Holy Spirit inspired everything written from the first verse of Scripture, Genesis 1.1, to the last verse in Scripture, Revelation 22.21. St. Peter wrote it this way:
For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2nd Pet 1.21).
The Holy Spirit used the minds, experience, research, memory, and teaching of all of these men, from Moses to John, to write the perfect, inspired, authoritative Word of God.
Because that’s true Christians believe in what we might call a revelatory epistemology. That means everything we know about God and his Law is because God has spoken to us. Our theory of knowledge is grounded in God’s self-revelation. What’s more, Protestants have always believed in the Reformation principle of sola Scriptura. Sola Scriptura is the doctrine that Scripture is the primary authority in the life of the church.
That doesn’t mean that other documents such as creeds, confessions, and catechisms carry no authority in the church, but creeds, confessions, and catechisms are authoritative in so far as they reflect the Scripture. They are like the moon. They do not produce light in and of themselves. But like the moon reflects the light of the sun, orthodox creeds, confessions, and catechisms reflect the truth of Scripture.
It’s also important to note that the Bible reveals to us that this God who speaks is the Holy Trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Son is called the Word of the Father (John 1.1-2). We noted earlier from 2nd Timothy 3.16 and 2nd Peter 1.21 that the Holy Spirit inspired the Word of God. The God who speaks is one God in three persons and those three persons work in concert to bring us the inspired Word of God.
So if all of this is true, if there is one true living God, and if this one true and living God has spoken and revealed himself and his Law in Scripture, then the preaching of the Bible is essential. If you don’t believe any of that then you don’t need Scripture or the church. If the Bible isn’t the very Word of sovereign God then why are you even listening to this sermon? What is the point of coming to church every week to feast on the Word and the sacrament?
Because it might create moralistic people? Because it’s the tradition you were raised in? If that’s it then you’re wasting your time. Seriously. If the Bible isn’t the living and active (Heb 4.12) Word of the one true God then you should do whatever you want. Don’t waste your time reading the Bible. Don’t waste your time coming to church.
But if the Bible is the Word of the one true and living God then nothing matters more. If the Scripture is the very revelation of the creator of the universe then it is a matter of life and death whether or not you come to church. It is a matter of life and death whether or not you feast on the Word and the sacrament every week. The Word is essential because God has spoken. We are his creatures and to him we must listen. As Francis Shafer said, “God is there and he is not silent.”
The Word is Essential because it Contains the Gospel
Second, the preaching of the Word of God is essential because Scripture contains the gospel. We noted earlier that YHWH commanded Adam not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Well Adam did eat and death spread to all men because all sinned (Rom 5.12). Adam’s sin cursed creation. But by his grace God spoke the promise in Genesis 3.15 – the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.
The gospel is the announcement of the reversal of that curse. And the Scripture is the story of God’s redemption of his people. The Bible is not “your roadmap to life.” It is not merely a list of rules, or a series of inspirational quotes or children’s stories. The Bible is the story of how God is saving his people from their sin (Matt 1.21).
2nd Timothy 3.15 says the sacred writings are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. The entire Bible is able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ. Every book, every chapter, every verse of Scripture is telling the story of the good news of Jesus. This is nowhere more clearly revealed than in Luke 24.
After his resurrection Jesus taught his disciples:
“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24.44-47).
Two things to note here: first, after his resurrection Jesus once again explains the gospel. The gospel is the good news that the eternal second person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He lived a truly human life, yet without sin (Heb 4.15). He suffered on the cross bearing the wrath of God for sins of his people and he died. On the third day he rose from the dead. And now everyone who will repent of their sin and trust in him will experience the forgiveness of sin and the hope of eternal life.
To repent of your sin means to confess that you are a sinner and turn from your sin. To believe in Christ means to know that God is holy and that you are a sinner and that the only answer to that problem of God’s holiness and your sin is who Jesus is and what Jesus did. But knowledge alone will not save you. You must also assent to the knowledge of who Jesus is and what Jesus did is true – you must actually believe the story of Jesus.
But there is one more element of faith; many people in hell will have knowledge and assent of the gospel but they will be in hell because they are not trusting in Jesus alone. Trust is the final component of faith; you must transfer your trust to Christ alone. You must place the full weight of your trust on the truth that it is through the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ alone that you can receive the forgiveness of your sins and the hope of eternal life. This is the gospel.
The second thing Jesus tells us in Luke 24 is that that this gospel was written about in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. That’s another way of saying the Old Testament. We know that the New Testament is all about the gospel but Jesus says here that the Old Testament is all about the gospel too. Every story, every person, every religious ritual, every law, every type, and every shadow in the Old Testament is preaching the good news of Jesus Christ.
And so the preaching of the Bible is essential because the Bible is the only place where we find the gospel. The Bible reveals to us that there is one true God who created everything, and that this God is holy and will not tolerate sin. The Bible tells us that this God created us in his image and warned us that if we sinned against him that we would face the curse of death. The Bible tells us that the very first image bearer Adam did sin and that all of creation was cursed with him. The Bible is the only place that tells us the story of redemption through the floods and fires, through the rise and fall of nations, from the manger to the cross.
Not only does the Bible tell us of our past but also it tells us of our future. It tells us that Jesus, who is ruling at the right hand of God, will return some day to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new. The second coming of the Lord Jesus is one of the reasons why preaching the Word of God is essential. In 2nd Timothy 4.1 Paul charges Elders to preach the Word because Jesus is going to return to judge the living and the dead. The Bible warns us that those who do not repent and believe will stand in judgment before Christ and that they will spend forever in eternal conscious punishment in a place called hell. The Bible comforts us that for those who do believe, we will live forever in the new creation where we will never sin nor will we desire sin.
The Bible is essential because humanity has a universal need. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3.23). Regardless of ethnicity, age, gender, socioeconomic status, political affiliation; regardless of where they’ve lived or when in history they’ve lived, every single human being who has ever lived has been in need of the forgiveness of sins and restoration with their creator. The good news is that Jesus Christ has come to accomplish that. And we only know this good news because God has told us in the Scripture.
The Word is Essential because it Equips us for Good Works
The preaching of the Word of God is essential because God has spoken; the preaching of the Word of God is essential because it contains the gospel; and finally the preaching of the Word of God is essential because it equips us for good works. Francis Schaeffer asks, “If God is there and he is not silent, how shall we now live?” The gospel shows us how we’re saved and it gives us the hope of our future, but how should we live now? Another way to ask the question is: we know how we’re justified, and we know we’re awaiting the hope of glorification, but what about sanctification?
Whether you call it Christian ethics, good works, obeying God’s Law, it all refers to the same thing: how should God’s people live? The Word is essential because it tells us that too. Back to our text in 2nd Timothy 3, verses 16-17 say,
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
The Word of God is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, that we may be equipped for every good work. When Paul originally wrote this the phrase man of God wasn’t referring to everyone, he was referring specifically to Timothy and other Elders who would preach the Word. A year and a half ago we were at my sisters wedding in Tennessee and Pastor Brett read Scripture as part of the liturgy of her service. The wedding officiate kept calling Brett, “man of God.” That’s how he referred to him throughout the whole rehearsal, “man of God.” So when you speak to Pastor Brett, make sure you address him as, “man of God.”
Paul was doing the same thing here. He was talking specifically about pastors, but the implication is certainly for all people. Pastors must be equipped to teach the people so that in turn the people can be equipped for every good work. That’s why after revealing to us that the Scripture contains the knowledge of salvation and is breathed out by God to equip us for good works, Paul commands the man of God to preach the Word…in season and out of season [to] reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. The verb preach is κήρυξον; it’s an aorist active imperative. It is an imperative, a command; pastors do not have an option of whether they can preach the Word; they are commanded to preach the word. And the verb is in the aorist tense meaning it is a general truth to be applied at all times.
And, in part, it is because the preaching of the Word of God equips the church for good works. Ephesians 2.10 says, for we are [God’s] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. God created us for good works. James 2.26 says, for as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. Martin Luther said, “We are saved by faith alone, but not a faith that is alone.” Our good works are the fruit of our faith.
In Matthew 22 Jewish leaders ask Jesus which is the greatest command in the Law. Jesus answers:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt 22.37-40).
Jesus says that the 10 commandments can be summarized in two commands: Love God and love people.
The Bible is essential because it equips us for good works. It reveals the love of God to us, which motivates us to love God and neighbor. It reveals God’s Law to us, distinguishing between right and wrong. It gives us sexual boundaries so that we don’t destroy our lives. Sex is like fire: in the fireplace of marriage between one man and one woman it warms the home and gives us light to see clearly; outside of that fireplace it burns the house down.
The Bible warns us that our hearts are desperately wicked, so we shouldn’t follow them. The Bible teaches us right submission: wives to husbands, children to parents, employees to employers, citizens to the government, church members to church Elders, and all people to God. The Bible shows us how God requires us to live. God has spoken; He has saved us; and He tells us how we shall now live.
Conclusion
I wrote one book on preaching – my dissertation, but Karl Barth wrote much on preaching and Jesus, the incarnate Word. Barth was a professor in Switzerland and one of the most influential and prolific theologians of the 20th century. Barth’s magnum opus was his Church Dogmatics that comprises 13 books. In 1962, Karl Barth visited the USA, lecturing at Princeton Theological Seminary and the University of Chicago. According to church lore, during his trip Barth was asked to summarize the theological meaning of the millions of words in the Church Dogmatics. Barth thought for a moment and said: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” And that’s why the preaching of the Word of God is essential.